Billy Long: Pelosi opposition to testing threatens Congress' safety from COVID-19

(From Seventh District Congressman Billy Long)

As Congress returned to work and more Representatives and staff returned to the Hill, GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy was the first to raise concerns about the lack of COVID-19 testing on Capitol Hill. 

His concerns were, and still are, valid. Representatives that still bother to come to work travel to and from their districts often, and even with the use of proper protective equipment and following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, our risk of exposure is never zero. 

Airports constantly remind you to “social distance” in the airport by staying six feet from the person next to you. They fail to mention that it is impossible to stay six inches, let alone six feet from the person sitting next to you for an hours’ long flight. Yet months after the Leader’s original call to action, we still don’t have testing in the House because Speaker Pelosi doesn’t believe it matters. 

It doesn’t matter to all the Democrats that are staying home and not bothering to come to Washington anymore. Though her party claims they are taking Coronavirus more seriously than the Republicans, their actions paint a different picture. 

One of my colleagues, Democrat Congressman Salud Carbajal announced on October 6th that he had just tested positive for COVID-19. For months, Speaker Pelosi has delayed COVID relief packages for political gain, and now she’s against administering tests to Representatives and staff entering the U.S. Capitol. 

Our work cannot stop because of a pandemic, and much of our constitutional obligations cannot be performed effectively by staying away from Washington. 

It is our responsibility to ensure the safety and security of this body and those who work here by mitigating the risk of exposure as much as we can so that we may perform our duties for the American people without interruption.

One reason Speaker Pelosi is not taking this threat seriously is because the Democrats recently changed the rules, and for the first time in our nation’s history, members of Congress don’t have to even bother to come to Washington. That’s right, they can stay home and campaign 24/7 while voting by proxy. You read that right, they can stay home and ask another member to cast their vote by proxy. On a recent vote 68 Democrats stayed home while asking others to go to the floor of the House and cast their vote for them. It’s become so prevalent that I have coined a new term for this procedure. I refer to it as “HyPROXYchloroquine.”

Despite President Trump and three Senators receiving positive COVID-19 tests, Speaker Pelosi is still resistant to mandatory testing in the U.S. Capitol. In a recent interview, Speaker Pelosi pushed back on instituting mandatory rapid testing for Capitol Hill saying she believes “most” people in the Capitol who have tested positive for COVID “did not get the virus at the Capitol. It was in other encounters, including at the White House.” 

Since May, House Administration Ranking Member Rodney Davis has urged the Speaker to implement House-wide testing but his repeated attempts to convince the Speaker testing was necessary have been completely ignored. It’s as if the Speaker believes that we are somehow protected from the virus at the Capitol, but there is no “invisible forcefield” here, and there’s certainly no way to know for sure that transmission of the virus didn’t occur here.

Pelosi also implied that we shouldn’t have testing in the Capitol because we don’t have enough tests and that mandatory testing in the Capitol would be somehow wasteful. 

Thanks to President Trump, however, tests and PPE are readily and widely available. As of late June, the U.S. had performed over 27 million tests with labs that are more than capable of handling larger numbers. 

If we have the resources, why is Speaker Pelosi still against the idea? 

Testing, and the Coronavirus in general, shouldn’t be a partisan issue, nor should our safety. The benefit of testing is, of course, to isolate infected individuals so the virus doesn’t spread, and we already know that people can be asymptomatic. Even people who’ve done everything right have still contracted the virus. Adding an additional layer of security would be wise and would help us prevent any outbreaks in the Capitol that could derail and delay the business of the American people—even more than the Democrats have already.

Leader McCarthy and Rep. Davis have been pushing for Capitol wide testing since May, but it’s only now that Sen. Schumer has expressed support for testing in the Senate that the media is offering support. 

The undeniable bias in the media that protects and praises the Democrats while admonishing and assigning blanket blame to the Republicans has persisted throughout this pandemic and has blatantly ignored Leader McCarthy’s call to action because it doesn’t support their narrative. 

I, however, recognize Leader McCarthy and Rep. Davis’ efforts and echo their call for testing in the Capitol. We have a duty to see the American people through this crisis and securing mandatory testing will help prevent additional and unnecessary delays.